School-based Counselling Services

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this really important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it.

Since I was elected, I have been working with young people from Peterborough schools on mental health services for children and young people. I am so lucky to have in my city a group of talented, passionate young people who are ready and willing to offer their time to work with their MP on this important issue. I genuinely consider it a privilege to be working with many of them. The speech that I am making today has in part been drafted by those young people; they have provided me with quotes, statistics and testimony. So I would like to thank Darya Robson, Charlotte Hemens, Amelia Lawson, Austeya Dalansamskita and Amira Dinari for all that they have done. They have done superb work and they make me proud of Peterborough.

It is well documented that there has been an increasing demand for mental health services for children and young people, much of it because of the measures taken to prevent the spread of covid. A recent survey by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reported that ChildLine helped as many as 67 children with suicidal thoughts a day. In my region, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust had 1,625 urgent referrals in the month of May 2021 alone, of which 795 were for potentially life-threatening conditions. We are facing a mental health crisis in our young people and the more that we can support them by providing access to early intervention in the form of in-school counselling, the better things will be.

The group of young people I have been working with has also been working with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough clinical commissioning group to secure a system with a single point of referral and a new website. The group approached me last week to request that I participate in this debate and campaign for school-based counselling, which I am more than happy to do.

In 2020, amid the first wave of the covid pandemic, one in six children aged five to 19 was identified as having a probable mental health disorder—up from one in nine before the pandemic. School should be the one safe place where every child can feel valued, cared for and accepted. It is the perfect place for students who are suffering with their mental health to access an on-site qualified counsellor.

I feel that the current systems and mechanisms for mental health provision are not serving young people as they should. In 2019, more than half of GP referrals to child and adolescent mental health services in the UK were rejected on the grounds that the symptoms were not severe enough. Although other services such as NHS mental health support teams are being developed, they are patchy in coverage and tend to focus on parental interventions. They are no substitute for on-site access to a qualified counsellor.

All the evidence, including research undertaken in my county, supports early intervention to prevent an issue from becoming a full-blown crisis. School-based counselling can provide an alternative option for young people who have nowhere else to turn. The young people I have been working with are from a range of schools and colleges; some are fortunate enough to have a school-based counsellor, but others are not.

Students who benefit from easily accessible on-site counselling testify that they feel more comfortable talking with a professional with whom they have a long-term relationship because of their presence in the school community. They also emphasise the overwhelming advantage from not missing education time by leaving school for external mental health appointments; a pre-covid study found that absence due to poor mental health accounted for more than 13% of school days lost. Students who have this option are also free from the burden of waiting times, referral lists and possible rejection for not meeting criteria, and are less likely to need access to emergency services.

Providing school-based counselling means that no student slips through the net. Students from schools and colleges that are not able to offer the service tell a different story. One group I met spoke of having access only to a trainee counsellor, who was limited in the support that they could provide, meaning that students waited a long time to access a non-qualified counsellor, only to be signposted to outside organisations. One student told me:

“Having a qualified counsellor would increase the attendance and engagement of students. More importantly it would mean that students can get the support they need without having to reach a crisis point before any action is taken. It would mean that students felt safer and more willing to seek the help they need without feeling like a burden.”

The pandemic has put an enormous strain on our young people. I believe that we owe it to them to ensure that they have the support that they need at the place where they need it: their school or college. I therefore urge Ministers to listen carefully to the voices of young people from a variety of schools in my constituency, including Peterborough School, the King’s School, Thomas Deacon Academy and St John Fisher School—lots of schools in my constituency have taken the time to contact me about the subject. Will Ministers please outline what they will do to get more counsellors based in schools?

Catch-up Premium

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [V]]

One of the things that pleased me most about the Government’s response to the global pandemic was the fact that schools were the last institutions to close and the first to reopen, because the classroom is the best environment for children to learn in. The vast majority of teachers and their support staff in Peterborough agree about that and were champing at the bit to return. But of course, on social media and in newspaper columns, the Labour councillors in Peterborough scared parents, peddled conspiracy theories about the effects of covid on children and said that children should not return, which undoubtedly led to some parents keeping their children away unnecessarily, impacting on their future. I make no apologies for holding those councillors to account for that, and they undoubtedly took their lead from the national leadership of the Labour party, who repeatedly refused to say that schools were safe.

Today we are repeating a debate from the last week and there are just three points I wish to re-emphasise. The first is that Peterborough schools have coped well. We did come together in Peterborough to support one another during the pandemic. Schools played their part, but they will, as we recover, need support. That is why more money into targeted tutoring is welcome. That is why more money into teacher training support is welcome, and that is why more money into mental health is welcome.

Secondly, let us remember what the Labour party said about schools at the last election and what its priority would be if it were now in Government. Its priorities would be to abolish academies, abolish Ofsted, and abolish league tables. While we build back, Labour would tear down.

That brings me to my final point, and a point that I made last week. If Labour were serious about recovery, it would embrace with an open mind the idea about extending the school day. This would be welcomed by parents. It would improve physical fitness. It would improve the social skills of young people, and, of course, it would improve academic attainment. The buildings are there; they are open. Let us use them properly to catch up. I speak all the time to headteachers in my constituency who would back this and embrace it 100%. If it is good for them to embrace, then we should embrace it, too.

Investing in Children and Young People

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is truly an honour to follow the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). The most troubling element of restrictions and lockdowns associated with the covid-19 pandemic has been the impact of school closures on our young people. Even withstanding the impact on their education, socialising with others and learning in a classroom environment has a whole host of obvious benefits. That is why this Government did everything in their power to keep children in the classroom and prioritised the safe reopening of schools in the first step of the road map out of lockdown.

Schools and teachers in Peterborough have done outstanding work supporting young people, either through remote learning or through supporting directly in the classroom the children of key workers, often going the extra mile. That has involved regular phone calls to families and young people just to let them know that they are not on their own and that their schools are still with them. As schools have reopened, they have been working hard to make sure that young people are not left behind. I place on record my thanks to teachers and all the school support staff in my city for what they have done.

I also place on record my thanks to Jonathan Lewis, the director of education at Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council. Council officers do not always get the appreciation that they merit: not only has he had to put up with phone calls and queries from an inquisitive and sometimes exasperated local MP, but he has been an invaluable source of advice for schools across the county during this difficult time. Every single headteacher I have spoken to in Peterborough thinks that Jonathan has done an outstanding job. He is an excellent council officer.

The Minister saw for himself the excellent work going on in Peterborough when I took him to the Queen Katharine Academy in Walton. We met the principal, Lynn Mayes, and her leadership team, and were impressed with their plans and their ambition—this is a school that went the extra mile—but perhaps most valuable was listening to some of the students themselves and hearing at first hand how they managed during the pandemic and how excited they are to be back.

Like many great schools in my constituency, the Queen Katharine Academy makes me proud to be the city’s MP, but it would be wrong for me to turn around and say that everything is fine and dandy. Young people in Peterborough have had to make huge sacrifices to tackle the virus. That is why the £3 billion that has been provided so far in catch-up support is important. The support is targeted at the right children with high-quality tutoring, including the 6 million 15-hour tutoring courses targeted at those students who need it the most.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) said, it has been shown that just one course of that high-quality tutoring has been proven to boost attainment by three to five months. This has the potential to have significant merit for young people in my constituency. Of course, that is on top of giving every pupil in England a funding boost as part of a £14.4 billion investment in schools and an increase in funding of more than £1.5 billion for children with special educational needs.

Schools are more than just a building; in fact, they are more than just a school and often they are the hub of a local community. We already have the infrastructure there to build back better. These buildings are open beyond school hours for youth clubs, community activities and sport, so why do we not make use of them for extended school hours to help our young people to catch up? Extending the school day could have a profound impact on the wellbeing of our young people, on mental health, on physical fitness and of course on academic attainment. So I was astounded to hear the Labour shadow Education Secretary say that we do not want children to be doing more formal learning. This is an extraordinary position for the Opposition to take, and parents up and down the country will be appalled.

Finally, I would like to say how pleased I am about the roll-out of new T-levels. These new qualifications will be very welcome for young people and parents in my city, and I am thrilled that City College Peterborough will be offering them by 2023. They are the perfect complement for our new STEM-focused university, which will transform our local area, and it is just one way in which Peterborough is building back better.

Educational Settings: Reopening

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As I set out, there is a very clear plan for reopening schools, based on the fact that schools are part of the national lockdown. There are clear criteria for how and when we emerge from that national lockdown, which will depend on vaccinations, mortality and tackling new variants and, most importantly, on the pressure that the NHS is facing.

On all the other issues the hon. Member trotted out, we have been working on them. In May, we entered into a contract to purchase 200,000 laptops; we increased that in August, September, October, and November. These computers are built to order—there is a long lead time, but we anticipated and prepared for every contingency, which is why we have orders in place for 1.3 million devices, 876,000 of which are now in the hands of young people and schools.

On rotas, they are difficult for secondary schools to implement at the same time as providing full-time education for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. Rotas do not prioritise exam years. We only ever restrict education as a last resort where transmission is exceptionally high, and rotas are a less effective means of reducing transmission risk than the approach set out in great detail in the contingency framework.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [V]]

Yesterday, I took part in a mental health summit with Peterborough citizens, our local clinical commissioning group and many pupils from Peterborough secondary schools. Despite the best efforts of the Government, the mental health of many students has been impacted by school closures. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating local students on raising these issues with me? I heard what he said about following scientific advice. When considering the right time to reopen schools, will he put the mental health impact on students at the very top of his priority list?

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues. Mental health concerns are at the forefront of all our decision making on schools and reopening schools, and I pay tribute to those students who have taken these issues as seriously as they have. It is why we are, over the longer term, putting in place the recommendations in our Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health. Once fully rolled out, I believe that they will transform the provision of mental health services for children in our schools.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I assure my hon. Friend that I will continue to focus on doing the right thing. That will be the key aim of all this.

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the vulnerable children right across society. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the many teachers and teaching assistants, the social workers who have worked so closely with schools, and the police who have identified some of the children who are most vulnerable—those who needed someone to take the opportunity to reach out to them and make sure that they came into school and had a safe place to come. They have done a magnificent job, and I think everyone in the House is deeply grateful for the triumphant and heroic efforts that they have all made.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the support that teachers and schools have offered to vulnerable people goes much further than just a free school meal? Some of the most vulnerable children in schools in Peterborough have received regular phone calls from their teachers making sure that they are okay and they are looked after during this difficult time.

[Gavin Williamson]

This is where we need to drive things further, to build up layer upon layer of support for children who are not in school to make sure that they are constantly learning, that they do not fall behind and that they constantly move forward in their education and benefit from the world-class education we have in this country.

Many schools have done an amazing job of keeping free school meals going through either food collections or deliveries. Where schools were unable to do that, we set up the national free school meals voucher. That scheme was established at pace, and over £150 million-worth of vouchers have been redeemed through it.

Alongside the voucher scheme, we continue to provide schools with all their expected funding, including funding to cover free school meals, and most schools right across the country have continued provision in school for those children who are most vulnerable. On top of that, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has provided an additional £63 million for local authorities to help those who are struggling financially to pay not just for food but for other necessities at this incredibly difficult time.

Although many children are now returning to school thanks to the outstanding efforts of hard-working teachers and all those who work in schools, we are not yet out of this crisis. In schools, homes, workplaces and, above all, the NHS, people up and down the country are still making extraordinary sacrifices to overcome this deadly disease.

Free school meals have always been a term-time provision, and that is what they should be, but while we are in extraordinary times, we must not be bound by the constraints of what normally happens. A Government should always listen to the people who need them most. I would like to extend my particular thanks to Marcus Rashford for using his public position to amplify the voices of those who must and should be heard. By speaking out for the less fortunate and raising the phenomenal total of over £20 million in just a few days, he represents the best of Britain and is a role model for all the children who look up to him for inspiration.

We should never be ashamed to listen. I am pleased to announce that we will provide additional funding for a covid summer food fund, to enable children who are eligible for free school meals to claim a six-week voucher. As we prepare for schools to reopen fully in September, we will ensure that no child goes hungry. As we move forward, we will continue to do all we can to support disadvantaged children through not just free school meals but a long-term and sustained programme of catch-up activities, to close the educational gap, which has widened during this period, and ensure that every child in this country can achieve their full potential. We are finalising those plans, and I will shortly be in a position to outline them to the House. We will not be moving our amendment, and I commend this motion to the House.

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[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

On days like this, I despair of this Government and their complete lack of understanding, care and emotion towards the very real issues in our country. [Interruption.] It is not a laughing matter for children to be raised in poverty and not have food. It is not something to laugh at. I am happy to explain what it is like to the Government Members who think it is funny.

What it is like to live in poverty is to be palmed off, like I was as a child, to social services, to go away for a week at a time. I went to Scarborough. The only memories I have of that time are that I went birdwatching and it was awfully cold staying in a dormitory. Only this afternoon, I rang my sister to ask, “Do you remember when we used to go to Scarborough because Mum used to send us there for summer holidays?” That is what poverty is—memories that you do not want to recall as an adult, even in my mid-40s. These are not memories that my constituents’ children should have to recall in generations to come.

I despair because today it has taken the experiences of a 22-year-old black man using his social media to get this Government to do the right thing. Our Prime Minister keeps saying, “I am going to take back control.” Who actually took control of this debate today? It was not us in this House. We should have been leading on this issue and doing the right thing before it needed a massive campaign by Marcus Rashford. I absolutely appreciate and thank him for taking that leadership, and others for supporting him, and our those on our Front Bench, who lobbied early this week and talked about the issue previously, but the Government should not have had to be dragged here kicking and screaming.

The Government should not need an international debate—just like today on child poverty—on racism for them to realise that they have failed to provide race equality in the UK, even according to their own recommendations. The Government should not need the entire country to scream in their face to act on a lockdown for us to be protected from covid-19. When it comes to saving millions, they are happy to do so for Tory donors. The figure quoted in the press as the saving made by approving a Tory donor’s Westferry development is £30 million to £40 million, yet we cannot find £120 million for our children. [Interruption.] I will make some progress. When it comes to defending the indefensible with a No. 10 adviser, this Government seem to find their mojo. They do not heed the campaigns that the country is screaming for.

[Paul Bristow]

rose—

[Naz Shah]

I will not be giving way; I will make some progress.

Bradford West has one of the highest rates of child poverty. It is in the top 10 according to the charity End Child Poverty. Its findings show that 50.9% of children in my constituency live in poverty after housing costs. The Government’s own statistics show that almost 40,000 children across the Bradford district are living in poverty. Those children are not mere statistics. Each one of them is a Marcus Rashford, except the cycle of deprivation will mean they may never get out of poverty.

Marcus Rashford epitomises what happens in spite of, not because of, poverty. One of the reasons he felt the campaign was needed was that poverty was his experience. One of the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) tweets about it and talks about it is that he also experienced life as a child of a single parent on free school meals, just like I did and just like my siblings did. Will the new yardstick in this place to get the Government to do the right thing be a campaign by a footballer or by somebody who has a social media following? Is that what the yardstick is going to be? That would be a crying shame.

Yes, the Government can say that they are running pilot schemes in constituencies such as mine—

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[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

From one Wythenshawe-born lad to another, thank you Marcus Rashford. As a United fan, it has been a pleasure to see so many people united from across the football family and well beyond, taking a powerful stand for children. Marcus stated passionately that this was about “humanity”, not politics—a humanity shaped by his direct experience of growing up in Wythenshawe, Manchester in child poverty. Actually, I partially disagree with Marcus on that point. Together with campaigners in Parliament and beyond, he has led change. He is a change maker, striking his political goal of feeding 1.3 million children this summer—Marcus Rashford one, Prime Minister Johnson nil.

[Paul Bristow]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Amesbury]

No.

Before the Prime Minister’s U-turn, Minister after Minister told us, “We don’t normally fund free school meals outside term time.” Well, we do not normally furlough 9 million workers. We do not normally ask people to isolate, distance and bubble. We do not normally close down schools in the middle of the school year. Nothing has been normal since March. This pandemic has required an extraordinary response from the party of small government and an extraordinary response from society.

This enforced U-turn—we remember the Order Paper, just hours ago—is a victory for children and a victory for common sense. But we cannot be in denial about the economic fallout from covid-19. This is only just the beginning, and it comes on top of 10 years of austerity. We cannot be in denial about the impact that this will have on the poorest in our society: the economic effect of the virus is pushing more families into poverty, and more children will go hungry, from Palacefields to Leftwich in my constituency.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) pointed out, the IPPR estimates that 200,000 more children will now fall below the poverty line and are at risk of hunger. This is not the time for a small state—it is the time for Government to get on their side, surely. In the long term, we need to look at the extraordinary number of children who are living in poverty in this country. We need to work hard to stop child poverty at its roots, rather than treating its worst symptoms or coming out with ideological claptrap and stereotypes. Hunger does not understand term dates. It does not understand ideological nonsense. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all worked together, grew up a little and ended child and food poverty once and for all?

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[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I add my voice to those thanking Marcus Rashford for his inspiring and tireless work against child hunger. I also pay tribute to 15-year-old Dev Sharma, the Member of Youth Parliament for Leicestershire and an ambassador for the Food Foundation, for championing the right to food for all children.

I could not agree more that in 2020, in the sixth richest country in the world, it is appalling that we are even having this debate about how to feed our children. Marcus is brilliant, but it should not be left to pioneering premier league footballers to paper over the cracks created by a decade of cruel austerity. The Government should be ashamed of their record: 200,000 children going hungry; 45% of African, Asian and minority ethnic children living in poverty; and 1 million more children projected to be in poverty by 2022.

[Paul Bristow]

The hon. Lady talked about the large number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds—in her constituency, perhaps—living in poverty. Will she congratulate the charities in Peterborough that are working with the Conservative city council there to ensure that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are helped during this difficult time?

[Claudia Webbe]

Indeed, I praise all the voluntary organisations, particularly in my own constituency, that have stepped up to provide food banks at a time when poverty has been stark, and the many faith organisations that have stepped in to help during these times.

I know from my own experience what it is like to be a child on free school meals despite both parents working, and what that means for survival, progress and opportunity. In communities like mine, this Government have normalised hunger, poverty and hopelessness. Some 42% of children in Leicester East live in poverty. Years of austerity combined with insecure employment means that an estimated 44,000 children in Leicestershire are living below the poverty line, even though the vast majority—31,000—have at least one parent who has a job. The fact that a job no longer provides a route out of poverty, or even guarantees that our children will be fed, represents an unforgivable breakdown of our social contract.

Before covid-19, 51% of children in one area of my constituency were in child poverty—and that was before this unprecedented crisis. Nearly 6,000 households in Leicester East are in fuel poverty, meaning that 14% of schoolchildren in my constituency are living in a situation where parents are forced to make the impossible choice between keeping their family warm or going hungry.

Beyond school meals, this Government have completely failed young people in Leicester in terms of education.